ardecila

OMG... you guys know how much I love old warehouse-type structures. It looks amazing! Nice job. The only thing I would suggest is maybe a little graffiti. This looks like just the type of neglected old warehouse to have some conspicuous graffiti. Is the roof texture custom? I can't tell, I know I have a pre-made texture that looks similar. Nice job!

SimFox - Ambient Occlusion is not something I'd considered, but it seems interesting. I would have to render two versions, though, and combine them in Photoshop, right? Explain to me roughly how to do this.

marcszar: I'm impressed that you know what a pilaster is! You're an architecture student, right? Anyways, the sides (including the pilaster shafts) are made with tin, over metal framing. There are corinthian capitals on top of the pilasters; I'm not sure if these were tin or plaster. Tin is cheaper and lighter; ideal for a publicly-funded transit station that needs to be suspended above a street. pquarles: Oh, I know about the levels. I built these from a set of blue prints and historical photos. There are stairs, and I did include the mezzanine level (which does not have walls, it's just a platform with railings beneath the stationhouses.) It's hard to see because the tracks and platforms cover most of it. The reason I added a second flight of steps is because, at the height I need to make it to match with SC4's tracks, one flight looks very odd to ge the full height between ground and mezzanine.

The reason the shadows look a little odd is for several reasons. 1, the supports are not textured. They won't even be included in the final model, but they are in there to give an idea of the final concept. 2, I am using an advanced lighting system that creates lighting effects far different from the original BAT. I think this makes it look more realistic, personally. I forgot to mention: a station identical to this one was featured in Spider-Man 2 (several Loop stations use the same design). In fact, the entire elevated-train scene in that movie was flimed in Chicago, with some digital modifications to make it resemble New York. There are no elevated tracks left on Manhattan anymore, so they had to come here. Now, here's a cool little rendering I whipped up.

Of course I'll remove the road texture before I render. I just put that there to give an idea of the concept. It makes more sense if you see it with the roads there. As for texturing - there are only about 3 bitmap textures used on this, and none of them are photoshopped. The rest are either solid color objects or procedurals (textures generated by Max). The gradient on the platform roof is a procedural, overlayed onto a flat roof texture using the Material Editor. If you're interested, I can show you how to do that, to avoid a lot of un-necessary photoshop time. But it's really the rendering technique I use that gives the scene all that depth (it's a modified version of SimFox's advanced light rig).

Hmmm... I can maybe do that as a seperate modd, but I can't change them as part of this lot.

And progress you shall see. I'll get to the point fast, because I've got a Frank Lloyd Wright essay to write. (no pun intended). Transfer bridge added, and I've raised the height. Now just some ads to add some color, then some night-lighting and I'll get this out. Click the image to be taken to a larger version.

Hmm.. time to reply while I eat some chili. Sir Gawain: Hmm.. I'm not sure what other CTA stations I will do. Most of them aren't that great architecturally. I will probably do one of the 60s-era stations from the Loop, and one of the Victorian stations out on the Green Line. I have the basic template already, I would just need to re-do the station house and the lighting fixtures. I wanted to do Wilson on the Red Line, since it looks so cool architecturally, but the tracks run at a crazy angle there, so that's out. Bixel: Thanks, but be sure to clean it up. Length issues: Yes, this is a real length. However, since it it meant to be plopped over a street, possibly one that has buildings facing it, I will have to do some sort of overhanging thing to avoid No Job Zots for the buildings facing the station. 6underground: You saw the Art Deco station up there which I plan to model. Andreas Roth: Yes, I haven't had much luck so far raising it to proper height - the stairs looks ridiculous. I might borrow some stuff from some other, higher stations on the CTA system. Also, I've been thinking about scaling up the station a bit so it doesn't seem so small, 15m in the air. Pic is resized. (or will be in a few seconds, lol)

Originally posted by: engineerisme Those look really great, but when you say the 4th Ave.-9th St., do you mean the Smith-9th Sts station on the F line? quote> No, I mean what I said. It's one stop further east on the F Line from the Smith/9th. It's a extremely nice piece of Art Deco architecture, and at the eastern end of the station, the line goes underground to become a subway underneath 9th Street. VV That's 4th Avenue, running underneath the station there.

Are you sure they don't show up in the preview renders? Black objects on the perimeter of the image tend to blend in with the background. I've made this mistake several times. What I would do is select all the fire escape objects, group them, and then put a FFD on it. Then move the control points over, resizing the fire escape so it doesn't show behind the wall. I like FFD modifiers, I use them hundreds of times on each building now. They're more precise than Select and Non-uniform Scale.

I dunno - I tend to use gradients on an overlay or multiply or hard-light layer, and then use some distortion filters to improve the look of the gradient, followed by lots of noise and then a gaussian blur. Or something like that. I never just use a pure gradient. I also like to use the dodge/burn tools, they are incredibly useful.

dmscopio: which version of Max do you have? More importantly, where is it installed? If it is installed into the Program Files folder, your batch files will not work, because FSHTool cannot read file paths with spaces. What I did is make an empty C:\3dsmax8 folder, and then I copied the "gamepacks" folder into it. Then I went and edited the batch file in Notepad so all the file paths pointed to the new folder. You can do this quickly using the Replace tool - replace "Program Files\Autodesk\3dsmax8" with "3dsmax8". Then run the batch file. It should output your FSHs. However, they will be output into the original Program Files folder, not the copied C:\3dsmax8. Then you can insert them into Reader and be on your merry way.

Right, exactly. This is why there must be at least one through route through the railyard that is dragged rather than plopped. Great idea, aleking! I recently added Google Earth placemarks for Chicago's rail yards, so I've been looking at these a lot. I could send you my grain elevator model, although it's not that great. If you know anything about gmax, you should be able to move and copy the pieces around and then render whatever size elevator you want.

Hmm.. I don't like that concrete-block area on the long side of the first floor. Unless it's done in limestone or something, I highly doubt it's original to the building. It looks like a cheap facade put on in the 70s or something - which only increases the realism, lol. Your call, really. BTW - the 1st-floor glass is wide enough that real transparency would look nice, with a rudimentary lobby inside.

The CS$$$ Maxis Theatre is based off of Chicago's demolished Paradise Theatre at Pulaski and Madison on the West Side. What a paradise it was:

Hey, it's my post office! Nice usage, with the government seals hanging off of the elevator shafts like that. Anyway, this seems like a nation stuck permanently in America's Gilded Age. If this is the case, there should be large industrial areas in your cities in addition to the monumental buildings. Warehouses, factories, etc. in urban areas. This looks very promising.

Actually, a recently-painted brick wall would not have a gradient. If sparky was using the raw red brick here, then the gradient would be appropriate, but not here, I don't think. There's enough detail on that wall that it avoids the "large flat wall" look anyway. Like that gutter - I never model those into my buildings, lol, although I probably should.

I can't really post any pictures. Reader crashes when I try to view them - the files themselves are invalid. There's probably a problem with my filepaths, like I said. The problem is, I got Max by borrowing a disc from a teacher at school - I can't go and re-install it. Maybe I can relocate it or something.

Thanks! I didn't know it was a candy garden, sorry. Excellent modelling on that. BTW, would you mind responding to my post in the MAXBAT help thread?

Yea, people desaturating their colors annoys me. SC4 is meant to be much more saturated than a real city. BTW, SimFox - I'd recommend applying some of this same knowledge to your garden BAT. It is way too bright, and the saturation is too low. A combination of lowering brightness and raising saturation should solve that problem.

I have two semesters of AutoCAD.. but since I learned gmax myself before that, AutoCAD was a snap. Recently, I have been using drawings available from the HABS, tracing them in AutoCAD, and extruding them in 3dsMax to form the basic outline of a building. Also, I can use the HABS drawings and obtain measurements for things through AutoCAD's Dimensioning, then use those dimensions to build things in Max.